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Great mini mixer ideal for many tasks, Good price and cute looking.

I was given this as a gift the Christmas I had my son 7 years ago. It was from a friend that tends to give thought to her presents. She said that she knew in the near future I would be making batches of baby food up and thought it would be handy as she too had one of her own. I am not sure of the exact price but think when I looked at the time of receiving it was approximately £20, yes I do occasionally look to see how much a gift is worth lol. My kids were given some great books last Christmas and when I looked on the back for price it had 99p stores printed on it lol. Anyway on with review.

This is a food processor but it's a mini one, cute and does the job but not for you if you need to use for large batches of cake making or large batches of anything really. It stands alone on a flat work surface on little rubber stoppers so it doesn't slip about. There is a small plastic bowl part which needs to be in a certain position so the catch is in position in it's slot which is on the white part of the mixer at the top. The blade easily slips onto the middle of the bowl where there is a circular part that is in the middle which comes half way up the bowl. The lid also slots into place interlocking for safety reasons as the mixer won't start unless the lid is locked into place.On the lid there is a funnel shape, you take the inside of it out and then can feed food straight into the mixer whilst it's on or pour in liquid. If you need to push something go don't use your hands but use the inside part of the funnel by pushing it back into it's position and then it will force anything in the hole to fall into the bowl.

The operating of this couldn't really be any easier as there is just one button on it on the top. Make sure it is plugged into the mains and switched on the grey coloured round button can be pushed one way or the other. Push down the on side and it will mix alone at a standard speed, push the other side which says pulse and it goes a little faster but you need to keep your finger on it because it goes off as soon as finger removed. Pulse option is really for if you want to mix something slight or maybe for parsley chopping and only need a matter of seconds.

We have been using this regularly now for 7 years and it is still going fine. I did use it as my friend suggested for making up baby purees for freezing, it was the perfect size. My partner uses this quite a bit too for making Humous in. I use it for want some onions dicing small and quick, breadcrumbs sometines and several other things. However as previous stated this is no good for baking cakes as just too small unless you only wanted a few cupcakes making. If you live alone it would be ok for mixing mince for meatballs or small soup batches too. The maximum this takes is 300ml.

This cleans up well with hot soapy water but I must say I do sometimes struggle with one part of it and that is under the blade is a hollow and it is too small to fit cloth up into and I don't always have a pipe cleaner at hand to be able to clean it properly which causes it to go a bit yucky. Other then that I have no issues with this whatsoever and will give it 5 stars.

This also saves getting the big boy mixer out which takes longer to clean and causes me hassle getting it out of the cupboard it is buried in lol.

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Advantages

Disadvantages

Despite the price cut, its still not good enough for most people who love to cook.

Since moving into a shared flat before my own single room becomes ready for official leasing, I've had to share a flat with four other students. The kitchen has the cheapest of cheap small kitchen appliances on offer as standard features. One of them is this tiny little Prestige food processor...

In so many ways the Prestige food processor makes sense if you live on your own because of its miniscule size. It reminds me of an old Haden food processor I used to have before I bought my better quality Kenwood food processor but the Haden suffered on ability because of a poor continuous food chute that chucked out the food in use and spat out liquids when the door on it had been closed over.

On design, the Prestige is not dissimilar though; right down to the small capacity plastic acrylic basket and locking top with pusher feeder tube, it does remind me of my old Haden, but in this respect it does away with the silly continuous feeding tube and additionally the basket, top, feeder and accessories are all dishwasher safe which my Hadens parts never were.

Two blades are supplied with this mini food processor; a steel blade for normal whipping, mixing and slicing through vegetables such as onions (more about particular testing on vegetables to come!) whilst a reversible metal disc with shred/grate marks and a sharp slice edge helps to make change over easy and quickly. An additional spindle is also supplied which must be inserted first before the discs can be put be locked into place, before the lid. My regular food processor however has the bother of pushing plates into another plastic disc carrier before it can be put in and doesn't have the facility here of simply swapping over the disc to the other side for other preparation work.

Simple detailing is kept to a minimum here on the Prestige with a permanent on/off button which stays on if you want continuous action, or press lightly on the same button to activate the pulse function. As with all pulse functions, you have to keep your finger on the button all the time but it's a good addition here and the button is clearly marked to show when it can be switched on and off. This is of course also displayed in the black and white paged booklet but it only shows the basics and there are no recipes added.

White plastic adorns the whole body of this little miracle marvel with a few inserts of light blue around the switch area and general labelling. The 300ml mixing bowl is very small, but then again it is a mini food processor. Argos currently sells this product as well as another chopper which has been designed only to incorporate a steel blade for purifying baby food So with its recent price cut from £18 down to £12 how does it perform?

** In Use **

The Prestige can shred up to a large onion or two small average onions and it does it well when using the steel blade. Its a shame though that despite the rubberised feet, the Prestige is unstable when it comes to smashing up the onion at the first point of contact with the blade and this is something that I find the Prestige suffers from because of its small size. Afterwards it does calm down and the Prestige remains stable with other food prep  but give it hard vegetables and you may have to stand near it! It is surprising given the small capacity that it manages to do anything with only 300 watts power additionally but this is also the same wattage on my own Kenwood food processor which sports a bigger bowl but at a slightly higher price (and comes with a lot more accessories) as well as being bigger and better placed.

Shredding cheese with the shredder disc however proved disappointing. I found that the last remainder bit of cheese can actually get stuck around the top and at times depending on the shape can lift the top off the food processor bowl top if you try to slam the last part of food down, roughly (even when it locks into place to activate the machine) . This is worrying particularly as the top has been locked down to activate the machine. Carrots however proved to be a mixed blessing with the last part wasted between the top lid and the shredder plate.

Hard cheese such as Parmesan is a general no-no for this food processor; it simply doesn't have the right type of blade and power behind it to cope with the toughness.

Slicing cucumber and virtually any kind of vegetable that you can put through a normal sized food processor poses no problem for the Prestige either although you do have to remember that it is a small machine and it has a small capacity bowl, so the amount of food placed has to be halved if you are used to a bigger machine. What does the full capacity equate to exactly? Well it means half a long, large cucumber will easily fill the small 300ml capacity when sliced.

** More Downsides **

When I tried to purify soup, and despite the safety interlocking lid, I discovered that part of the capacity jug leaks if you try to put too much in. There are graduations on the jug and a middle line which shows the maximum of liquid the Prestige bowl can actually take but I'd have liked to have an air tight mechanism which ensures no leakages and before you say anything, my Kenwood is better in this respect and has the ability to double liquid volume thanks to its Maxi disc attachment. It all becomes very clear who the better performer is between Prestige and Kenwood even though the Prestige is the tinniest food processor I have ever tried. Nuts, castor sugar (for icing sugar) and coffee beans however are all food products which the blade cannot grind to a fine ground, and small bite size particles are all that it will chop up.

Whisking milk however proved to be problematic because whilst there is no actual whipping blade, the use of the steel blade ensures some degree of whisking ability but it doesn't whisk and froth up milk very well despite the helpful manual's ability to suggest so. 250 ml of milk for example serves up one average serving of many milk based drinks including yogurt and healthy milk shakes but I think it's the lack of design on the simple steel blade which lets it whisking ability down here. The Prestige also failed to whip up double cream in seconds, remembering that the steel blade is the only other attachment you get here for general whisking and whipping.

And forget the idea that even if it has a steel metal blade, it will crush ice. Unfortunately the design of the blade has no thick serrated edges which are requisite design points needed for ice crushing capabilities.

Lastly, the worst principle of ownership however is the noise element. I find the Prestige is bearable for short, quick tasks, but for long term and long durations of time, this food processor suffers from a very high whine motor.

** Anything Else? **

Although all food prep discs and steel blade have been made with stainless steel, the steel blade has been very cheaply made and does not come with any protection. Whilst the blade has no perforated marks on it like a proper cutting knife, it is possible to cut yourself so you have to be careful. The blade fins warp easily but not enough to impede actual performance.

After five to ten minutes of one continual use, I found the motor unit and body was quite hot to touch.

General build quality is okay but you do get what you pay for in this respect. The upside is that there is not one other rival in the market which can mirror what the Prestige food processor can do, unless you buy a reconditioned machine which is bigger and likely to take up more worktop space. Magimix and other premium brand companies (such as Dualit) have a small food processor like this on the market but they are far pricier and come with a lot more attachments.

Another worthy consideration of this little machine is the fact that it is so little! Put two electric can openers together and you'll get the general idea of the length and height that this little machine occupies. For most kitchens then, this machine can be hidden away at a moments notice thanks to its weight and size.

** Washing Down **

Well if you don't own a dishwasher, then hot soapy water ensures that the plastic jug and parts can be washed easily. Removing the colouring of carrots however is always a burden to remove and even I don't have any tips on how to shift the staining colour. One upside is that staining doesn't occur that much, but that may have something to do with the small size of the jug and the general plastic quality, which isn't too bad and doesn't reek of cheapness. General acrylic is clear plastic with no tint of light blue or grey.